The Great Subtitle War: Subtitles or Dub?

I prefer subtitles at the movies, but on TV I find it too hard to read them.

I decry the loss of the oldie theaters, in later days oft acting as art movie houses - the theaters with asbestos perhaps in the ceilings, often with velvety seating, decent popcorn, and two movies a day, changing every day, the paired movies related in some way to each other. Even the monthly programs were engrossing - what to see, what to see? We could go Thursday..

Those were memorable years - for three or four years in the seventies, or did that extend to the eighties - my husband and I saw 4 to 6 movies a week, well, most of the time - movie gluttons. $1.50 admission each, each time. That was at the Fox Venice, but there was at least one similar theater in Hollywood with movies that were worth the drive over there. I know there were other theaters like that out there..
The theater experience was good, the audiences liked movies and were moderately quiet and polite. A bunch even stayed, like we did, for the credits.

Fox Venice later became some kind of indoor swap meet place. Grrrrr.

I saw some swell movies elsewhere, but Fox Venice was my major place.

Tree of the Wooden Clogs (Olmi)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077138/

When I am in Mexico, I sometimes watch movies in English with Spanish subtitles. I find the subtitles (which I don't need) to be quite distracting... and a part of my mind that I can't turn off sees all the ways the subtitles don't match what is really being said.

When I watch English movies dubbed into Spanish, I don't have that problem.

When watching movies in a language I don't understand... it really depends on the genre. For Action movies I prefer dubbing. The whole point of these movies is to turn off my mind, and dubbing is the laziest option.

For movies that are slower or have any intellectual substance, I usually prefer subtitles.

Japanese anime with dubbing... I approve (I watch quite a bit of anime with my daughter).

I always have the English subtitles turned on regardless of language as I find it really enhances my enjoyment.

It never distracts me from the action, and I find I have no problems with reading and watching at the same time.

I hate dubbing. It always sounds stupid

Deafness means subtitles are a necessity. I tried watching Family Guy without subtitles. Turns out that animated characters don't actually mouth the words correctly rendering lip-reading impossible.

This wouldn't be the same with subtitles.

Closed captions and subtitles are kind of different yet samey. But I also throw the subtitles on when English or Scottish actors have thickly accented regional accents.

I'd also put on closed captions when watching television and have to keep the volume low. Don't do that now as I rarely watch television and I watch most of what I watch on my laptop while wearing gamer headphones with decent audio quality.

Not sure that even Disney has a level of animation that is lip-reading worthy. I don't know how to sufficiently read lips beyond a few words or really give it a try to see what level I would be at if I really needed to start using that skill.

If you're trying to keep-up with subtitles, You're missing the entire Visual production.

OPTIMUM VISUAL ACCESS - DENIED.

Or Not (If You're Mad), perhaps?

Have A Lovely Day

That's a valid point. And a good reason to go with the dub (hoping it has a good or better voice acting cast).

Agreed.
I've watched many 'subtitled' movies (No longer watch Tv or Film) and missed out on the visual experience, by having to read an inaudible plot.

We should All speak the Same (Language) - No need for visual deprication then.

Have A Lovely Day

On the other hand, without subtitles/ closed captions,

OPTIMUM AURAL ACCESS - DENIED.

I for instance have no problem with deafness, or volume control of what I watch. Ok, with the caveat that in some movies, there are times when the soundtrack overpowers the voices. That's another story IMO.

Re closed captions.
Many times, because of regional accents, speed of even a certain word being said, 2 or more people talking/interrupting each other, diction, and many other, I sometimes won't catch just one word, or sometimes several words/phrase. Usually it doesn't affect my ability to follow the story, but, I want to know what that word was. It changes my total, overall experience.
I personally don't feel it impedes my visual in any way. It's a backup. My eyes momentarily flicker to the caption

Re dubbing.
Just so disconcerting to me because of the viusal mismatching.
The lip movements, the choice of voices, no matter how good, just never sounds right to me. If I know the non english speaker actor and the voice is being dubbed english, forget it.
With reading subtitles, again, I can't say it's ever taken away from my visual perception. It may even enhance it. Plus I get to hear the emotions in the language spoken, and at the same time understand. Dubbing voices sounds strained to me, over acting, over wrought.
BTW, I am totally a more visual person that aural.

tsar, can you post a clip of something that you consider a really excellent english dubbing? I'd like to see how I feel.

Sorry, was making a smart-ass comment regarding lip-reading animated characters. Doubt it could be done - I imagine the shortest of short animations would take years to get right!

I thought closed captioning was just an Americanism for what we call subtitles but it seems there is a difference, as you say. Live and learn!

What is the 'perfect' (relative to you (Observer)) cinematic experience?

Anything 'other', than - Is 'imperfect'

Have a Lovely Day

Often closed captioning is done for hearing-impaired viewers. They would often include notes like "dramatic music playing" or "loud noise" or "door slammed," etc.... Also, it's weird that I found productions sometimes would include background dialogue that wasn't meant to be really heard ... would be written out.

Closed captioning often isn't done by the studio producing the film or (mostly) tv series but done by a third-party service after the project production is done and before its broadcast or streaming.

I think it depends on the film. When I saw Danish film noir Flame and Citron, which is fantastic btw, I saw it with subtitles. I wouldn’t have wanted to see that dubbed.

The Japanese series Monkey which was shown over here in the early 80s was dubbed. The dubbing made it, poorly translated English with very Japanese accents made it very funny.

I don't like that reading subtitles takes from a full appreciation of the visuals, but a bad dubbing is worse.

I remember watching Monkey many years ago, but only for the terrible dubbing. It was hilariously bad.